#MeToo: From Where We Stand – AF3IRM Hawai’i

HONOLULU—Workplaces in Hawai‘i—from Waikiki hotels to State Capitol halls— are hostile to women. Hawaiʻi under United States’ control has a history of subordinating women under men through law and culture. As a result, men as a class and as individuals hold more power, and they have abused this power.

Men’s systemic abuse of power continues to block our path to economic security, political power, and true liberation. It also prevents solidarity between men and women workers. Through unequal pay, lack of support for working mothers, sexual harassment, sexual violence, and femicide, women have been pushed out of workplaces and other domains that men are trained to think of as their own. Even as women have been permitted limited entry into workplaces, the culture of male dominance demands dependence on men and assimilation to patriarchal ideals. Today, International Working Women’s Day, we bring our own demand: stand in the shoes of women and march with us as fellow human beings toward a society that values our work.

AF3IRM Hawai‘i’s 2018 International Working Women’s Day guerrilla art action draws inspiration from Mexican artist Elina Chauvet’s “Zapatos Rojos,” an artivist project featuring pairs of red shoes simulating a silent protest march of absent women, disappeared by gender-based violence. We have expanded the action to recognize the women “disappeared” from their fields of work by the gender violence highlighted by #MeToo. We have centered our action around the Queen’s statue, as Lili’u was forcefully removed from her position as Queen by a white male-led illegal overthrow.

On this day, we recognize the struggles of women, past and present, and offer a call for resistance:

“We must and will do battle from where we stand–we have no other choice.

We will not let decades of progress be forced backwards.

We will stand on the shoulders of women and ancestors before us, and will continue to fight to protect a woman’s right to be.

Take heart, sisters.

Hold strong, community.

We know this nation was built with imperialism and colonialism and is sustained through our oppression.
They have tried to silence us, to kill us, to divide us, but we have survived.

Local activists will stage a guerrilla art protest at the Hawai`i State Capitol in coordination with women’s strikes and protests around the world. This will be the only public event in Hawai`i commemorating International Women’s Day, which is a national holiday in over two dozen countries.